Attention and Oculomotor Control: Attentional Resolution

注意力和动眼神经控制：注意力分辨率

• 批准号: 6599576
• 负责人: CATHLEEN M MOORE
• 金额: $ 27.95万
• 依托单位: PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY, THE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-06-05 至 2008-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6599576
• 关键词: attention; behavioral /social science research tag; binocular vision; clinical research; computer program /software; eye movements; human subject; optics; psychological tests; psychophysics; saccades; space perception; visual fields; visual fixation; visual tracking

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): There is a great deal of evidence that eye movements and attention are linked. However, evidence regarding the nature of the link is sometimes contradictory and lacking. Specification of the relationship between the two systems would allow us to consider attention, which is a poorly specified construct, within the relatively concrete and neurally well understood domain of eye movements. We propose to investigate the relationship between attention and eye movements within a new domain to help resolve some of the contradictions and fill in some of the gaps of knowledge. Specifically, we seek to understand the relationship between attention and eye movements through an investigation of attentional resolution, which is the precision with which one can discretely move attention among closely spaced items. Attentional resolution is remarkably coarse given the precision with which people can perceive simply that there are multiple items present. Eye movements, it seems, may be limited in a similar way; counting items in a closely spaced display, for example, is no easier when one is allowed to fixate the items than when one must rely on attention only. Together, these observations suggest that oculomotor limitations may determine at least some attentional limitations (or vice versa), thereby providing a specific link and domain of inquiry between the two systems. We will begin by comparing attentional resolution to saccadic resolution, which is the precision with which people can move their eyes to individual items. We hypothesize that the limits of attentional control are imposed by the limits of saccadic control, and therefore that attentional resolution will be indiscriminable from or coarser than saccadic resolution. We will then relate the instability of ocular fixation to the coarseness of attentional resolution. We hypothesize that the limitations of attentional resolution are at least partly determined by the spatial uncertainty that is created by ocular jitter during fixation, and therefore that attentional resolution will be finer when that jitter is eliminated by optically stabilizing the display. Finally, we will assess how experimental manipulations that are known to affect saccadic behavior affect attentional resolution. We hypothesize, for example, that transient adaptation of the saccadic system will transfer to the attentional control system and alter observers' attentional resolution.

描述（由申请人提供）：有大量证据表明眼球运动和注意力相关。然而，关于这种联系的性质的证据有时是矛盾的并且缺乏。两个系统之间关系的规范将使我们能够在相对具体且神经上易于理解的眼球运动领域内考虑注意力，这是一个不太明确的结构。我们建议在新领域内研究注意力和眼球运动之间的关系，以帮助解决一些矛盾并填补一些知识空白。具体来说，我们试图通过对注意力分辨率的研究来理解注意力和眼球运动之间的关系，注意力分辨率是一个人在紧密间隔的项目之间离散地移动注意力的精度。考虑到人们可以简单地感知到存在多个项目的精确度，注意力分辨率是非常粗糙的。眼球运动似乎也可能以类似的方式受到限制。例如，当人们被允许注视物品时，在紧密间隔的显示器中计数物品并不比仅依靠注意力时更容易。总之，这些观察结果表明动眼神经限制可能决定至少一些注意力限制（反之亦然），从而在两个系统之间提供特定的联系和探究领域。我们首先将注意力分辨率与扫视分辨率进行比较，扫视分辨率是人们将目光移至单个项目的精确度。我们假设注意力控制的限制是由扫视控制的限制所强加的，因此注意力分辨率将与扫视分辨率无法区分或比扫视分辨率更粗糙。然后，我们将把眼睛注视的不稳定性与注意力分辨率的粗糙度联系起来。我们假设注意力分辨率的限制至少部分是由注视期间眼睛抖动产生的空间不确定性决定的，因此，当通过光学稳定显示器消除抖动时，注意力分辨率将会更好。最后，我们将评估已知影响扫视行为的实验操作如何影响注意力分辨率。例如，我们假设扫视系统的短暂适应将转移到注意力控制系统并改变观察者的注意力分辨率。